Mining
Mining is one of the four main ways to earn credits, with the others being Culture Revenue, revenue earned through facilities like the Spaceport, and revenue earned through the Space Elevator. Mining is expected to be a more early-game method of earning credits on a barren planet, but as you build more cities, culture revenue becomes a greater source of income. A mine can be exhausted, but culture revenue streams last indefinitely, unless their host city is destroyed or deserted. Outpost In order to mine for resources to gain credits, you need to place an outpost, and then add a mine to that outpost. Just like cities, you will want to place your outpost on places with high elevation, because that will keep it from flooding as your world's water levels rise. Other than that, it does not matter where you place your outpost. Resources are generated randomly when you place an outpost, so there is no 'best' place to place an outpost. Your first outpost costs 1 million credits, the second 2 million, the third 3 million etc. Mine placement Generally, when adding a mine, it's better to decrease the size of the scanner early on for better scanning results. You can only place a mine with maximum focus (slider all the way down). You can't place mines too close to each other, so always check an area for higher materials before you place a lower material mine there. Place outposts in areas with high elevation. They will be destroyed when they go underwater. If a mine goes underwater, but not the outpost, the mine will still be destroyed. Unfortunately, unlike placement of cities and outposts, elevation statistics are not shown on the map when you place a mine. Which areas are underwater will be visible on that map (unless you've built the Orbital Surveyor). You cannot place a mine underwater. The determination of this seems to be based on % of the smallest scanner's area that is underwater - it is possible to place a mine right on top of a small pond, as long as it is surrounded and outnumbered by land around it within the scanner area. Research You need to research a resource before you can mine it. Carbon is unlocked already at the start. Researching mining materials is instant, though you cannot be researching anything else when you want to research a material. Researching materials is equally expensive on any difficulty mode. Different resources You can mine various resources, each more valuable than the one before it. Lower value material mines don't provide a lot of credits, so don't make too many of those. However, since more valuable resources are rarer, a slightly less valuable one can offer more revenue if the yield is much higher. It seems the point where it is worth mining is silver and above - an abundant silver mine can sometimes rival a mediocre mine of more valuable resources, but it is very unlikely an iron or carbon mine is ever competitive. Mine costs Placing a Mine has a base cost of 50,000 credits, which is the value used for the first mine in an outpost, for a Carbon mine. Iron, Silver, Palladium, and Rhodium multiplies this by 2x, 3x, 4x, and 5x respectively, and the second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. mines also multiplies it by 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, etc. Therefore, for example, a Palladium mine that is the fourth mine of any type in an outpost costs 800,000 credits (50000x4x4). Because of how multiplication works, you should always build mines of a higher resource first. On a new outpost, building a Rhodium, Palladium, and then a Silver mine would cost 250000+400000+450000=1100000 while in the reverse order it costs 150000+400000+750000=1300000 credits. Since the cost of placing mines keeps rising, it makes more economical sense to make a new outpost after a few mines, since there are usually only a few good mining spots anyway. Mining rate How many kg of resources mined per minute depends on the concentration of it at the spot. The absolute maximum of a level I mine is 300 kg/min, but anything higher than carbon is increasingly unlikely to be anywhere near that. A rhodium mine is considered pretty good if it has around 150 kg/min. The Paydirt event would boost a mine's productivity to maximum and greatly increase its lifespan. Leveling up a mine does not change the total amount of revenue, only increase the rate of mining (and proportionately shortening mine lifespan). The maximum rate is also increased. You can upgrade it to up to level V, and each level is a flat +50% to the rate (e.g. if level I is 300 kg/min, level II, III, IV, and V are 450, 600, 750, and 900 kg/min). Satellite The Orbital Surveyor satellite allows you to see where materials are before placing mines, saving you a lot of time. You won't need to painstakingly move that scanner around anymore. But you lose the ability to see which parts of a mine are underwater. Naming Mines are automatically named after the Greek alphabet, as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, etc. with a Roman numeral behind it to denote its level, so the first mine you build is always labelled as "Alpha I". While it makes no economical sense to build this many mines, if you insist, the 24th mine would be named "Omega" (the last letter in the alphabet), and the 25th "Alpha Alpha", 26th "Alpha Beta", and so on. End of a mine Mines can be flooded by rising sea levels. Unlike cities, each mine in an outpost is calculated separately. Since an outpost is an area, it is possible for lower-lying mines in the same outpost to be drowned while those in higher ground is untouched. A flooded mine is completely destroyed and removed from the outpost. The other mines are moved up in the alphabet, e.g. if an Alpha mine is drowned the Beta mine is renamed Alpha, etc. A mine would eventually run out of resources. By default, this lasts for about 2 days and 7.5 hours (close to 333,333 seconds, with insignificant variation). An exhausted mine however, remains listed, it just doesn't produce anything any more and can be demolished to remove them completely. Once removed, that area will no longer have the amount of mineral it previously has. The amount of resources available will also be accordingly lowered if you demolish an active mine, so you can't cheat the system by demolishing one before exhaustion. All mines belonging to an outpost are destroyed if the outpost explodes in an Industrial Accident Event. Difficulty changes In Beginner mode, mines last 3 times as long (nearly a week by default), and each kg of ore is worth 3 times as much. E.g. everything else being the same, a Beginner mine is 9x as profitable overall compared to a Normal mode mine. Trivia *In real life, palladium and rhodium are both rare metals used in catalytic converters in cars to reduce pollution from exhaust. They are also both prone to wild fluctuations in price, but palladium is often more expensive than rhodium. *The game also does not reflect real-life abundances of the elements on different planets. For example, carbon is abundant for mining on the Moon in-game, but in real life only trace amounts of carbon exist on the Moon, much rarer than iron. Category:Content